Goodness! Look what this conversation has descended into: slop and the Pointer Sisters! :) But such is the fate of very long threads. Going back to the initial points, now that I've been tempted out of lurkdom: I voted "I learn some new stuff written from interestingly new angles" in the poll, and I second Nanne's words above:

ET is an antidote to the meaningless, self-satisfied and often spectacularly uninformed discourse in traditional media